Zenzibar wrote:My take is that if you take a generational talent and place him in ANY era, they would STILL be generational.
This, I disagree with.
A lot of the impact generational guys produce comes from not having been seen before, and thus not having been imitated for decades. A lot of guys would still be good, but many of them would struggle to produce comparable impact to what they managed in their own time because the sport absorbs their accomplishments, learns from it, adapts, evolves and moves on. The same guy decades forward can still be very good, but "generational" is a big word.
Pete Marovich[/qoite]
Sidebar, but weird mention. Not generational at all. Interesting in the context of flash (and especially flash over substance), but largely unremarkable.
In this era there are many mediocre players, who would not be able to play or fight in past eras. Can you imagine a player like Wayne Gretsky, Dan Marino, Jerry West engaging in today's semi-soft ruled sports? They would have a field day.
Gretsky would have to reinvent his game and would be going against more than just stand-up goalies. That would particularly change things, even if his vision and passing would still be useful. And the size and speed of the game is different now as well. West would likely be pretty excellent in today's game, but he too would see some limitations and changes, and require adaptation. Neither would be changing the modern game with their arrival, though.
Russ, in particular, is the archetype of the mobile defensive center. There's literally nothing revolutionary about that at all in the context of today's game. He'd be very good, but he also wouldn't be a 20 rpg player, he wouldn't be radically altering the paradigm of defensive play in the league. He'd be extremely good, but not "generational" in that sense. And his limited offense would work more against him in that vein as well. No one really looks at Mutombo or Big Ben or Gobert as generational guys. Obviously Russ would likely be better than that, but only so much better than 4-time DPOY level guys who rebounded well, you know? Russell had more offensive chops than Wallace, but rookie Mutombo was nearly a 17 ppg guy too, and a 102 TS+ guy in the process.
I think there's a delicate balance between acknowledging and respecting what a player was relative to his own time and acknowledging what would change if he were moved forward in time. It's a big part of why I am not a fan of cross-era comparisons distant by much more than a decade or so, especially over boundaries of large and consequential rules changes.
Like, Jordan in today's game? Okay, we can work with that some because there are similar archetypes who thrive. A more athletic Shai isn't terribly difficult to envision and the basic nature of the game isn't THAT much different. A guy who last played 55 years ago, however, is a little bit of a different story. Shot blocking impact is a little different with volume 3pt shooting, and with changed spacing. Still hella valuable (hello, Wembanyama) but it's not quite the same. Russ was super mobile, so the athletic demands on bigs changing doesn't bother him much, and he'd be a great rebounder independent of era. Different volumes and such, but whatever, that's not so important. He'd be among the league leaders in raw RPG as well as TRB% and all that, no doubt. But lacking a jumper and being crap at the foul line are problematic, especially in the absence of dominant presence inside. It limits Russ' utility as a scorer. He didn't score much in his own time, was never a 20 ppg on a regular season. That limits his impact in today's game and puts pressure on teams to flesh the roster out with scoring talent, which is a little challenging financially at times, depending on what kind of contract he's taking.
He wouldn't be averaging 42 mpg (his career average), and indeed, from 59-66, he averaged 44 mpg, which definitely isn't happening in today's environment.
So there are things which alter his impact profile. Some of it can be recouped with the idea that we have different strategy for using bigs with athleticism and good hands, of course. PnR play is considerably more developed in this era than in the 60s, for example, and the 3pt line changes how much landscape there is on the interior for usage. A 15-footer used to be considered spacing. Witness Ho Grant, Buck Williams, Kurt Thomas and other PFs who were used thus. Then we saw the slow development of the corner specialist. Danny Ainge was an early adopter, Paxson, Craig Hodges, Kerr, etc. Into Bowen for the Spurs and so forth. You saw a little Sam Perkins and then some other dudes like Clifford Robinson as stretch 4s. Horry as a stretch 3/4 for Houston and LA. Shard with Dwight, alongside Hedo. Serge Ibaka. La la la, evolution of the way the floor is opened up. And so lots of room for Russ to roll off a screen. Couldn't pop reliably, so they couldn't spam it, but there are tons of guys who have lower but efficient usage. dhsilv and I were going back and forth about Capela and other limited-range guys who have some use there. And then Russ would no doubt still be a monster on the O boards, which is almost a super power in this era.
He didn't get in the way of the team's offense and he certainly was able to step it up a little in the playoffs but not that much, except by volume. We're talking him playing 46 mpg and shooting 1% worse from the floor and 4% better at the line.
Mind that he was a 13 PTS36 guy in his actual career, at 120+ possessions per game, with the same scoring rate in the playoffs, and wasn't generally an efficient scorer for the bulk of his career, particularly after 1960. That's a lot more of a problem in today's game. We ASSASSINATE players who aren't able to step it up more in the playoffs routinely, even if it isn't super appropriate.
But again, as I find myself rambling (as I am wont to do), "generational" is a big word. There aren't but a couple of those guys at a time, and they meaningfully alter and dominate the game. Russ wouldn't be doing that in today's game. It's too distant from his own time and his skill set in his own time wasn't sufficiently 2-way. You'd have to ascribe a bunch of skills to him which weren't really on his radar at all, and a mentality he explicitly didn't have, in order to try and envision his offensive impact in this era improving. And that would likely take away from the other side of his game, as it typically does for any player.
I generally espouse the idea that it's best to appreciate guys in their own time. Mikan would not be very impressive in today's game, but he was the NBA's first superstar and was a monster in his own time. Russell, same same (only more forward-portable). Dude was a 5-time MVP, which has been matched only by Jordan and exceeded only by Kareem. That's BIG. And of course he dominated the league he had to play in as well as is essentially possible. It's simpler to talk about the two years in which he DIDN'T win than those in which he did. That's epic. Dude's heartily ensconced in any legitimate GOAT conversation. But yeah, things aren't forever and the league changes over time. Jordan wouldn't be winning 6 in today's era as a unipolar volume scorer either, for example. His team would have huge problems if he tried to shoot that much. My guy was a 30+ FGA100 player on his career. There are 22 player-seasons of that sort of shooting volume in the past quarter century (one of which was Wizards Jordan in his first year). McGrady 3 times, Iverson 4 times, Luka 3 times, Westbrook twice, Kobe twice. Donovan Mitchell, Stackhouse, 09 Wade, Harden, Melo, Brunson, Giannis. It's not really that awesome a tactic, and is typically the result of a team which doesn't have the chops to produce offense otherwise, and then withers under defensive pressure.
Better to appreciate guys for their impact during their own careers.
